Ivy's COOK THE STEAK, DON'T STAKE THE COOK apron.

...Everyone had to eat, but eating people wasn't polite.

The gentle sound of her words became the shushing of my blood in my head, and I listened, hovering on the edge of consciousness, bathed in the oblivion of whatever drug they had given me.

Hey, ah, does anyone want a cookie or something? Oh yeah. A cookie. That would make everything better. Dunked in a shot of tequila , maybe? Or better yet, just the bottle? Yeah, that ought to do it.

He wanted that again, that feeling of standing with her against all odds and succeeding. He wanted it so bad, he was going to risk destroying everything he and his father had worked for.

The warm dampness of her breath made me shiver at the mix of the familiar and the unknown, with a soft exhalation she shifted her head and her lips found my collarbone, teasingly shy of my old scar. Tendrils pulsed in time with my heart, building on the ones before to an unseen height.

He just wanted to hold her to him and tell her it would be okay, that she had survived and was beautiful.